Yes blogs do rank high in search engine results in Google,
Optimize blog properly and get high quality links from high authority site and write quality content with keywords included from keyword research

Agree With you. Some bloggers start blogging with excitement . after doing small SEO works they see no changes in the ranking and traffic and they just give away. But if we do right methods in SEO we will definitely get the results in our favor sooner or later.

Blogging is a good to get traffic. It is essential if you want good business on the web. Even you can see if you find any think there on the web(search engines like: Google) you get most results of blogs. I can say it is a communication process between client and the marketer. I found most of the results on the web have a good length of content so far. Some of big blogger also mention in their blog that the good amount of content gets rank top as well. So write as more as it is possible to you.

Yes, both get ranking position in search results. Just try to do all SEO techniques into high quality or PR sites and use all social networking sites. You can use your blog for your website ranking also.